ONCE UPON A TIME AWAY FROM HOLLYWOOD

Mark Galesnik

Angelina Jolie, the media darling and everyone’s favorite actress, announced an upcoming horror «Gaza Tragedy». A gripping plot: the entire strip, converted to an open-air prison, becomes a mass grave. How about this one? UN’s head director Guttieresh ought to love it, Antonio just can’t resist this kind of metaphor.

Of course, one could bring up the fact Gaza borders Egypt, as well as Israel, and it’s Egypt that’s been adamantly refusing Gazans entry, even in wartime. Nobody could ask that, since everyone knows what stand up neighbors Gaza’s inhabitants really are.

Which is why Israel, having heroically liberated Gaza from Israeli occupation 18 years ago, continues to provide it with food and water, gives Gazans jobs, and buys their shirts, vegetables and home-brewn «Absolute» vodka. It even tolerates constant missile strikes and terror attacks. All to prevent Gaza from becoming the kind of mass grave Angelina has nightmares about.

But let’s not get hung up on the details. Let us follow established rules of the screenwriting art. Before she got to the main plot, Angelina expressed outrage at the horrors of the «Black Saturday». Excellent post-credits material - clips of unhinged Gazan barbarism as they storm peaceful towns and hamlets, carnage and scenes of general tragedy. Brutality almost worthy of Spielberg and early Tarantino. The humanity! Makes your blood boil. Nobody could hold back tears, from Angelina to Erdogan. And all amateur footage, to boot! Of course, exposition’s a tad overdrawn, full of aestetically displeasing shots and creates the illusion of irredeemable evil, which threatens the intended happy ending. True, this movie is R-rated, but no animals have been hurt, have they?

Israelis are the only ones, for whom this isn’t cinema. They know that should they fail to dig out the monsters from their holes, squashing down every bit of sympathy, next time Angelina will have front-row seats to scenes of carnage shot in Tel-Aviv and Jerusalem. Guttieresh, for his part, will explain the massacre in its historical context and how really, it’s our own fault. Just the other day Antonio had the inspiration to claim Jews provoked these recent events themselves.

Here would have been the perfect spot for a flashback from Jewish history, when their shenanigans last provoked disaster. Guttieresh is well familiar with this plot, written by a certain German screenwriter. What was his name again… it was based on the bestseller «Mein Kampf». They say this particular dramatist has fallen out of favor with most movie industry big wigs, who happen to be Jewish. Must have been a union thing. Still, probably best to avoid the flashback while they’re still calling the shots.

Now’s a good time to focus on how Israel’s response to… ahem… untoward behavior from certain Gaza inhabitants has been somewhat disproportionate.

Yes, disproportionate. With all possibly sympathy to Israel, what happened there is no reason to equate the words «HAMAS» and «inhuman», «palestinians» and «animals», «islamists» and «murderers». Even separated by a «but», like this: «HAMAS are animals, but not all palestinians are butchers!». Nothing personal, the public simpy won’t understand why yesterday’s freedom fighters suddenly turned into butchers.

Oh no, better to simply change scenes, give us a detailed shot of children accosted by Jewish bombs. Zoom in as close as possible. A blooded palestinian boy… wait, where’s the boy? Who took the boy off the set?

Wait, did someone feed the children? What do you mean «no»? What happened to billions of dollars and euros for humanitarian purposes? What set? What background? What are we going to do with 500 kilometers of tunnels and 40,000 rockets? Where’s the money, Lebowski?

Never mind, this is turning into a documentary. Our Angelina won’t lower herself to counting how much of her taxes, donated to palestinian butchers, I mean freedom fighters, went to child killing, I mean humanitarian purposes.

And anyway, we need to focus on the main plot – let’s get to the ending, where good triumphs over evil, which will immediately stop bombing innocent palestinian children, with a happy ending for two peoples - Arab and Jewish. Happy for one, ending for the other. I kid, I kid. Don’t record that.

And now for a catchy banner: «Palestinian and Israeli lives matter!» Make it recognizable. Wait, why just Palestinian? What happened to the Israelis? The heroine can’t just focus on good guys, let Israeli lives matter, too. Get those Israelis back on the banner! It’s time for the grand finale.

Now focus! This is where the heroine demands a ceasefire with a stern voice. Right now! Not so the surviving animals can leave their holes and invade our living rooms with knives and AK-47s, oh no! It’s so all men of peace can see a clear victory over evil, with themselves as the victors.

Cue the music.
Roll credits.
A single tear runs down the cheek of the global community.
A thick layer of Jewish spit on the screen.

Translation by Rodion Feldman